Daily News Channel
The lesbian couple competing in the Mitre 10 Dream Home reality TV show have hit back at vicious online attacks about their sexuality. The choice of Jay Blair, 29, and Amanda Fail, 31, to be one of two Christchurch families competing for the chance to build a new house was labelled a ratings stunt.
The journey to fame begins at the base of Auckland’s Sky Tower, where some of the 300 hopefuls who passed the initial selection process have gathered for live auditions for The X Factor NZ. Wannabe rappers in basketball jerseys mingle with women in expensively daring dresses as they wait in line for their shot at fame
CAMPAIGN James Johnson kept his glacial blue eyes glued to the motel-room TV set, his mouth slightly open as if in wonder. Walter Mondale’s campaign chairman had been in the state capitol in St.
Three U.S.
An interview with a choreographer for the Miss Universe pageant spurred controversy Wednesday over alleged claims that Donald Trump personally selects some of the finalists. The Q&A with Michael Schwandt, which appeared on Guanabee.com, quotes him as saying that “it’s just kind of common knowledge that [Trump] picks six of the top 15 single-handedly.” “And, his reason for doing so, as he told me and he’s told the girls before, is that he left it all up to preliminary judging in the past, and some of the most beautiful women, in his opinion, were not in the top 15, and he was kind of upset about that,” the story quotes Schwandt as saying. “And he decided that he would pick a certain number and let the judges pick a certain number.” Via e-mail, Schwandt said that he “was speaking in hypothetical jest” when he said Trump picks some of the finalists and said the mogul has never spoken to either him, or any of his team, about the selection process.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent pick for the country’s top vice president continued to draw fire Thursday, with a senior cleric issuing a fatwa against the appointment, a leading reformist newspaper reported Sunday. According to the newspaper — Etemad-e Melli — Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi’s Islamic edict against the selection of Esfandyar Rahim Mashaie is part of a larger fatwa issued Wednesday — the same day the nation’s supreme leader reportedly called on Ahmadinejad to remove Mashaie from the top vice president post
Political junkies who weren’t thrilled at the prospect of a relatively staid confirmation process for President Barack Obama’s as yet unnamed Supreme Court nominee can rest easy. This week Senate Republicans named perennial bomb thrower Jeff Sessions, 62, of Alabama to be the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, promising to bring at least a few sparks to a confirmation process that — if Minnesota’s Al Franken is seated — was bound to be relatively easy. While Sessions alone can’t change the basic legislative math that promises whomever Obama picks to replace retiring Justice David Souter a fairly easy path to confirmation, he can certainly liven up the proceedings